A Lone Volcano Deep at sea
by Czarsoup
Summary: A woman sits alone in her room late at night, wondering what she's going to do with emotions and longings that have accumulated over a life. Helen Keller feels willing to do just about anything to break out of the figurative cage that has formed over parts of her inner world.
1. Chapter 1

Helen Wondered at their sense of space. She wondered if birds might feel their cage to be sufficient in amenities or not. Is the cage big or little cramped. Are they simply trapped with no way out? Do the humans that placed it there have any real right to demand they appreciate their circumstances with gratitude and positive regard for them?

Helen Felt her way around the typewriter. Running her fingers around the keys, feeling the metal at the sides, refreshingly cool to the touch. She wondered what it would be like to be this typewriter. To not have eyes to see your timeless beauty. To be felt sensually every time you were touched to make some letter. Over and over until words. until phrases. Some impressive display of communication with letters and words.

She let loose in emotional sigh

"This Remington Keller 10." She made believe to herself.  
"I simply must have it." A deep manly resonance passed through her.  
He came in to find the typewriter that might best suit him and here he has found her. She waited poised. Patient. Longing for the warming touch of flesh. His touch was needed to make her come alive in ways the people who built her could not. She needed the repeated touches for words to feel the warmth she craved. Cravings in moments such as these, alone, she would allow herself to feel.

A wet heat trickled down her face. She imagined she was out in the middle of some dark ocean spilling red hot lava all alone somewhere far out from land.

Helen thought to herself It's still late and Annie still lays asleep.  
She thought to make her way back to her bed and hold herself again as she has tended to after such bouts of insomnia.

Her hands lay still and waiting upon the keys on the typewriter. They began to warm from her heat. She wondered if her blood might boil. She wondered if she might then fry an egg on the metals she touched.

Helen rocked back and forth. She rocked over the balls of her feet.  
Another surge came through her and she felt pushed to start typing.  
She breathed in deeply. Exhaled slowly.

Such things once upon a time took her so rapturously as to render her ill at ease and basically attacking all who where near with all that she had no way to put form to. Maybe sweets might abate some her.

Just what she could reason to herself to do with these emotions and these wants?  
She thought that she could not possibly bare it one more day one more moment.  
Helen waited for the right words to come. Maybe simply bleeding would lay her lava out to cool on the page. A place for a piercing grace to land.

Yes. A well worded letter to Twain, Perhaps. No, an appeal to someone who might see the woman behind the reputation. A well worded letter to a wealthy intellectual or some rich writer. Someone who could keep the letter to themselves. Any such communication would be intercepted by her transcriber and translator. She knew this. There would be no way to covertly communicate her need or want to them. Teacher knew her too well.

"Guard, step mother, jailer."

She didn't know if she said that right. She didn't care. It felt good to say it with no fear of the words being corrected or stoped or spun into something else. Helen felt so sick and tired of being censored. Teacher has done so much. Helen also told herself.

"Teacher"

She drew a heavy sigh from her heart and Helen's heart did not feel any lighter.  
A queer anticipation came from between her legs and she shook them side to side until the heat abated.

Annie would hear the typewriter. Even if she didn't come now to check on her ward, she would inquire tomorrow. Who could she pass the letter off to for sending? How could she receive a reply covertly?

Helen wondered if she could truly and utterly resign herself to not ever knowing the touch of the man. To not experience letting herself be seen as might only be possible in the ways that a lover looks upon its subject of Lust, adoration, love. Perhaps, Helen thought, if she were not some world renowned saint, this is some bit of normalcy that would not particularly perturb most.

"Mi-ra-cle" What came out felt about right to Helen. She felt the lilt of sobs

The typewriter was hot to her touch. Helen thought to herself, she'd rather not be in this moment much longer. She thought if she read one of those books and put it away before she fell asleep, she wouldn't have to deal with Teacher acosting her for what she was doing with her wants and her feelings. But then, if she did fall asleep reading, she wouldn't have spent another night clutching herself alone.


	2. Chapter 2

Soft and patchy ground giving way.  
The dewy grass slips up a bit with the boot bottoms.  
Crisp air motes through lungs.  
Bellowing shallow. Fast.

Something is deeply amiss.  
Helen can't seem to get footing.

Teacher pulls and forever onward she goes.  
Breathing, ruining into some deep abyss.  
For all she knows.  
running.

"Earthquake!" Helen wants to speak. Something they can't stop for.

A jerk to the left sends her careening. Teacher must have slipped.  
Her heart slips.  
Falling. Falling. The deep peaty smell confirming Helen's horror.

Annie's hand is the vice grip of death. She wonders who is screaming louder.

Helen comes to to a sore face and bottom. Annie has been shaking her

by the shoulder. Helen sits up as slowly as the hand to her face.

The typewriter keys have made little craters onto her face. Moisture.  
Helen bolted up. Awake.  
Her tears could not possibly have survived the night. This is what she tells herself.  
Annie grabs Helen and starts spelling.

"Seeing you drooling and asleep over a typewriter reminds me so of the days spent cramming for exams."  
Helen is immediately relieved. In no way did she want to find herself talking about last night.

"I dreamed that teacher and I fleeing an earthquake and the earth swallowed us up. My heart still races."  
Annie brought her hands over Helen's shoulder - Her arms. Her heart slowed and she began to feel soothed.  
Annie firmly caressed her arm.

"we walked for quite a while, didn't we? I thought the one patch of mud may as well have been quicksand. Heels are terrible in mud however I felt so well matched to my dress and hair in them."

Helen Sheepishly nodded. She rose to get the day on with.

Annie and Helen busied themselves making breakfast, tidying the table and occasionally throwing the odd hand spell to each other. Helen absorbed herself in the day and the feeling of sun while she stood at the water basin. Rainwater of days past hung in the air. Spring must be nearing, Helen recalled. The way the wood floors where cold felt the best at this time.

They hadn't felt the need to light the fireplace last night. Such mundane pleasures hold little pockets of delight. As most days go being in such a large gap between talks or business.

As they sat to eat Annie spelled to Helen about yesterday.

I had a dream the other night about John." Annie pulled away jarringly.

The table and air near by rattled tensely.

"Are you coughing?" Yes, a cough, to Helen's relief.

"I dreamt I was terribly sick and I had need to arrange for your Care. I could only seem to find money hungry woman and weak fame hungry men. I settled to telegramming John for someone from the paper or something. I was desperate to get someone temporarily. After sending the gram a hail of arrows fell over me and I lay prone and dying with knowledge that John had somehow arranged for my death." Annie said it was a dream but felt real anxiety rising in Annie.  
"Is this where you tell me how loath you are to trust a man?"  
Helen playfully danced around Annie's hand, an attempt to lighten the mood.  
"Yes- _Helen_." Annie conceded. Helen could smell the eggs on Annie's breath. And mock sternness She hoped  
"Teacher teaches so much about life, words and men.-"Helen quickly pivoted in her mind Shocked with herself inwardly at the bitter joke which was just about to emerge."What I need to learn I suppose is how I might make more money." Helen giggled nervously. Her heart raced in her chest. "Well, I'll teach you this." Annie paused, presumably to drink. "I intend to leave as much as I might the charming of old smart men. They give you funds and pain your buns."  
Helen laughed at the cute joke.  
Really, she mostly felt relief.

Helens thoughts paused. She knew that feeling of cars driving the driveway.

"I hear someone coming. Wait here."Helen decided to keep working on her breakfast. She chewed on eggs sensing the other two people with Annie.  
A tense feeling came and went over Helen.  
She went for the bacon.

Doing something was good to abate that feeling of being an island floating out to sea while Annie wasn't near.  
Something down on the inside became hot. Soon a peculiar sent came accompanying Annie's.

The long sure-footed strides landed softly on the hardwood.

A car drove away from the farmhouse. Teacher took Helen's hands in hers.

"Speaking of who we might not trust."

A large hand touched upon Helen's placed by Annie.

"The hand I give you now is that of Author Spiel. On the recommendation of a woman who has worked with the blind-deaf. I cannot deny his proficiency."  
Author placed their hands further into the table as he took his seat. He produced deft ginger letters "Greetings ms Keller. I am Author Spiel and Author is fine.  
I don't know any German but I do know when fingerspelling is being snuck ahead of me."

Helen knew that Annie could see her blush  
she subtly kicked her calve muscle under the table.

"Please sit with us. we've made quite a bit of breakfast"

Helen knew the routine. Though she was at home and he smelled somehow

Floral and masculine. Qualified in fingerspelling, indeed.

Helen ritually contained her excitement.

Lava slowly churned somewhere deep down.

She would have to trade eating and talking with these two.  
The great Helen Keller only had two hands.  
Annie must have been heaving air heaved air.

Author came to them on his friend's recommendation and after securing money from a government-sponsored study is offering himself to serve Helen in almost all the capacities Annie does.

Annie began to tap onto the floor with her heel,

Their morse code often allowed them to covertly communicate around people.

"I-C-A-N- D - O- T- H-A-T-T-O" Helen wondered if what she felt through Annie's hand was dissbelief.

Couldn't Annie hear him talk?

Here it had hit her that she hadn't been smelling Author's breath.  
He was… Talking in spelling with each of them the whole time.  
Helen wondered if she was feeling the heat of Annie's frustrated ego.

"I've met John and I like to think I can read people critically. I can only imagine what Ms. Sullivan feels of men. I have worked with a deaf-blind brother and I was Galvanized in his care when I read of the girl from Tuscumbia. I have academic and humanitarian goals. You each may take me on trial at no cost to yourselves. I must simply have a place to be and to record my Deaf-blind communication research findings. I correspond to my brother for life and work." Helens mouth stood agape. Helen almost jumped out of her seat when Annie relented that they should try him.

Annie was also kicking her again "This one is too clever." she grabbed Helen behind the arm, away from Author's gaze, no doubt.

She then spelled into Helen's hand over the table,  
"He is obviously capable and I could very much use breaks to pace myself." Helen felt a little surprised at this admission of Annie's.

"Well Mr. Spiel, I do then agree, how are we to make the arrangements?"

Helen could feel herself smiling.  
Helen hoped her best that her lady costume was plenty on.  
Author's hand was so muscular and warm.  
Soft and uncalloused and very sure in its movements.

Helen knew that she was growing impressed.  
She hoped deep inside this was the start of something new and good in their- In her and Annie's life.

"Annie-Our mutual friend, She has my belongings, The place I'm currently set on looks to be near of a drive to herre,"

Helen caught herself about to twist her hair.

Helen's breakfast was almost cold by the time she finished it.  
A heat in her abdomen was building and she could feel Annie staring.

It suddenly came to Helen that Annie had shifted to sitting very near to Helen and grabbed her by the back of the arm again, spelling covertly.  
"This looks so good to be true but he seems so highly qualified and he's going to be completely free, and he offered to clean the gutters when we were all out front."

"You ladies don't have to give me an answer anytime soon but it would be most convenient for me to have an answer sooner than later."

Annie and Helen already knew the answer.


	3. Chapter 3

Author left a fragrant void behind him. Helen hazed out somewhere between thinking it was maybe lavender and sweat.  
Annie Shook her. "Well, look at this, sneak the devil's name and he sends a Pretty little imp to check." Helen hoped this wasn't a harold of spiraling.  
"We agreed to his aid nonetheless, I admit my surprise to your agreeing."Helen wondered if she could really hide her ruminating excitement. Annie seemed to think a moment while she held Helen's hand.  
"For one- Arthur Spiel? what kind of name is that?" Helen didn't know how to feel about Annie's heat and muscles in her spelling. Something smelled funny. Aurthor Speil was a funny name though.  
"Annie, are you really sick? That's why you had that dream, wasn't it?" Annie recoiled down to her finger tips. Annie repositioned her hand on Helen tepidly.  
"I'm sure it's nothing, though I'm thinking of what I might do to better keep up with the demands of our lot here." Helen wanted deeply for Teacher to care better for herself. She jumped at another chance to convince her it was important.  
"Yes dear teacher and for example, You'll be telling me about how we've not gotten onto the letters, the talk calendar, those bags by the front bookshelf, the rent to the oner"  
Annie finally starts to interject.  
"Yess Radcliff, don't you too accuse me of running you into the Madhouse like the rest of them." Helen dawned a mischievous smirk  
"Ms. Sullivan, you know you've sired the worlds 8Ith wonder, we do fret upon Helen's welfare." They shared a little giggle. Helen hoped she was successfully tending Annie's mood.  
"It's so hard not to... Not to think about the possibilities. Like John. Like Old Dog deans and Grant winning investors in wiry beards."  
Helen understood on some level. But then -  
"What might my darkness be if I lingered on the possibilities of living on the one hand guiding me. Please guide me into a treat and a new pillow"  
Annie heaved air at Helen.  
"Oh Helen, I wish I could say there was some magic necessary thing that I am left wanting besides the regret for having wanted men near in the first place."  
Helen knew Annie might burst if touched wrong right now.  
" Just think of all he has helped us with, at least sparingly, before you pick up John's name to run it through mud again."  
"It all just seems rather good to be true. I should check this friend that brought such a thing to our home. Another hopeful and sweet thing with his future hurt in hand."  
Helen sighed. She thought she might have been getting somewhere initially.  
"Well, I will get down to finding out more of this Arthur spiel, in the meantime, I fretfully accept this turn of luck, mark my words If this comes to regret. A Grant he said, A grant!? Another one looking to find out how I made the 8th wonder of the world?l"  
Helen concealed her rising panic as best she can. She convinced herself to just remain calm  
"We are a bit older now my dear teacher, And he did say he worked with a brother under a pseudonym? What would he be out to copy?"  
"If this brother exists, He must have had help, they must have gone to some school someplace, they must have worked with an editor Someone in Radcliffe must know of them... I have to set about discovering this man's history. There must be some people to mail..."  
Helen felt the breath hot off of Annie's yelling. Coffee and breakfast in her breath.  
Helen thought she might rather deal with Annie pacing back and forth instead of her ornery rambling.  
Helen supposed though that Annie would do that while they got on with the day's business. She focused on looking forward to smelling Aurthor again.

They stopped on a particular letter. Helen would wonder at the gross misfortune of it, as usual. Such particular things that make us as we are.  
He fell upon the planted pickaxe. Part of his eye is likely seeded in a dark crevice deep someplace.  
"How much can we send him?" "How young was he?" "Can he read?" "where was the mine?" "does he have a family?" The sorts of questions which she usually couldn't help but ask. Helen could feel Annie's ambivalence over Her philanthropic nature.  
She could feel her heave air at her. "Kind words and directives for a braille writer, fingerspelling."  
Teacher wanted to be self-preserving, Helen knew. Annie's cynical nature didn't readily allow her to believe these people could really be helped, just consoled.  
"Can he afford to secure such things straight away?" Helen wasn't thinking. There were as many kinds of braille as thoughts on the blind these days.  
Surely, he needs some money for medical bills. Surely he is trying to call on some kind of help and guidance. Helen made sure to balance conversation by adding bits of playful joking.  
"I can work well in the dark. How much do miners get paid again?"  
Helen smirked when she felt Annie laugh.  
"Very funny Helen, I wish we had such comically large finances as your sense of humor."

Helen wished that Annie had a bigger sense of humor.  
"What is not funny is that we can send him words or money but cannot send him Teacher. The letter said he still has partial vision?"  
"The letter says that the doctors expect the vision to return in the one eye."  
"He can wake from the Odin sleep, wiser now and more powerful." Helen hoped she felt laughter.  
Annie's hand disappeared. Helen felt Annie walk around the room a minute. She put a letter in Helen's hand. Fancy paper.  
spelling errors jumped before the awareness of the formal fancy paper. Helen sighed in relief she wasn't about to revise more of her writing.  
"A place in Iowa?" This was a talk invitation for a blind person's community center opening. Helen was one of its inspirations for opening.  
"I want to laugh teacher but how many revisions do I make to each letter before sending it? They don't have Teacher to make sure it's perfect"  
"True, though not near as many as John would have you make."  
Helen felt in Annie's hand she should move the conversation away from the J word.  
"Some banter besides talk of war or blind-dumb inducing injuries might help to balance my humor's palette."  
"Oh, yes sire, I shall fetch the royal barber." Helen could feel that Annie slammed paper to the ground and bolted out of the room. They'd been working through the day's correspondance and writing rather slowly today. Helen tried to imagine John being with Annie. Helen tried to imagine what it might be like for John when he'd have put up with Annie's moods. Perhaps he catches her jaw in patient waiting hands and stops her outlook from drifting quite so far into her dark melancholy. A fiery urge jumped to Helen just then. She was glad for this bit of solitude.  
Helen reminded herself not to romanticize it much. Those nights sequestered in a room alone while she could feel them arguing was a different kind of loneliness.

Helen was hit with ravenous hunger and she felt food would do for now. She knew there were grapes in the pantry. Helen felt her way to the kitchen wondering if she could get away with -nutting a romance novel into the cover of some other braille book. Helen had a hard time thinking of how Teacher's eyes where lately compared to the past. Walking into the kitchen and smelling her way through, Helen thought she might eat something else. She leaned in the pantry eating bread and happened to feel grapes. Blushes of pleasure came over her. How mad was Teacher? Helen asked herself about Annie's different phrases today. Her heat her scent. Annie seems far resigned today. Helen's thoughts return to the dream Annie told her about. Helen could guess as to how the arrival of Aurthor was upsetting.

Helen's zeal for grapes backfired when she bit hard on a grape seed. She jumped and cussed. She bumped her head on a shelf. She breathed a moment and held her head. Helen felt around her face for typewriter craters.  
"Healed"  
It felt good to talk. Helen tried not to think more about the quality of her vocals.  
Annie must be going into something melancholic. Well, maybe more anxious or hysterical, the way her feet wrapped the floor…  
Helen couldn't connect to that same sense of zealous attention and management in Annie today. Her same fight wasn't there. Thoughts of Annie being sick popped into her mind. More roiling thoughts inside her. Helen was beginning to feel fed-up. She breathed out and let herself sag down into a corner in the pantry.  
Helen slumped down to a box with bread and grapes in hand. The cascading melting of the buttery flaky bread into grape flavors went so well together.  
The pain in her head was fading and heat was budding in her abdomen and chest.  
Helen brought her pointer finger to her mouth's corner. She began moving it slowly.  
Some bread crumbs fell in with the ridges on her finger. Lips hot and moistening to the touch. The feelings of crumbs and plump heated lips melted away into a sensual heat.  
Blood rushed up her diaphragm. Some muscle in there contorted.  
Helen spotted the dangerous moan and clenched her teeth in time.  
But Helen started letting herself trust the feeling she had some time.  
Chewing became more methodical. Helen imagined she smelled lavender. Another smell. She knew what books were talking about when they mentioned "musk" and "stallions"  
John and Annie would often reek of that vital thing which was denied her. Helen skipped over the thought their intimacy was as explosive as the arguing.  
Helen rolled her tongue in her mouth feeling the little fleshy furs of the tongue rake and absorb the bread in waves and pisces.  
An awkward wheeze leaked from her throat.  
The feeling of big soft and muscular hands grabbing her deep in her sides.  
Tactile memory was just as good for creative construction as it is for recall.  
The right hand brought its way ur her side massaging her. Helen twirled her hair and kept chewing.  
Savoring.  
Hot celestial hands touched down from her imagination to please her. Lower back muscles. Lower waist. Up the spine. Helen's feet firmly planted and sliding.  
Unconsciously, her pelvis moved sensually over the box. Back and forth.  
Helen felt herself becoming a vat of churning lava in the deep dark. Blood pumped hard and slow. Helen imagined being a bottle of wine.  
Aging until the appointed time.  
Helen kept her mouth closed. She became hyper-aware of everything containing her. Her skin, hair pores, the inseams, the ridges on the box. Helen thought she could pop right now like the feeling of a wine bottle shooting the cork. The feeling of feet wrapping hardwood brought her sitting up like a statue. A full stop to her sensual reverie. Helen felt like a frightened child caught with her steamy novel. Helen swallowed her bread. Helen breathed in and out cooling air.  
She became nervous when she could smell herself.  
Teacher never said anything about things like that, she told herself. Helen cleared her throat and said her beat,  
"Annie?" Helen hoped she was doing as little as possible to give herself away.  
she felt the steps stop and redirect towards her. Wiped away crumbs and tucked her hair back up. Hands were soon on her.  
"There you are. I was going to ask you if you wanted something to eat. Looks like you are ahead of me" Helen sensed worry come to Annie by the time she finished spelling.  
She checked Helen's forehead. "You feel hot. You're okay, right?" Helen Smiled and nodded. "You came in time, Teacher, I have just had a few grapes and some bread"  
"Yes, I think I'll join you a little there." Helen can feel her walk over her a little and slice off a piece of bread. She's eating and spelling into her hand. "Oh Helen, it's so long before we're off to a talk or any engagement. I thought I'd see if I'd successfully hid a little treat from your sweat hound nose" Annie made a few steps. Something dragged across a wood shelf. Something open and new scent came into the little pantry. A blade sliced twice. The unmistakable scent of apple pie made full seat in her nose. A slice landed in her open palm. Helen smiled wide like a kid with a surprise treat "I've been checking the books In your room. No loose book bindings, I'm proud of you." Helen made a mental note about book hiding her hawt reads and enjoyed herself.

"If you try to reprimand me for not sitting at the table with a fork and knife, I'll contact my lawyer."  
"Don't tempt me, and you will wash your hands after this or else." Helen was pretty sure she was joking. Helen learned to take moments like this when they come and enjoy them. They sat in the pantry and ate together a while. But then Annie spelled;  
"It's Arthur. Not Author." Helen could shake a lingering sense of anxiety. 


End file.
